200 Words with Paul Dini #41 - Lunch with Santa 2008

8 Posted on Dec 23, 2008 in articles by Conor Kilpatrick |

December 23, 2008

The place: Loteria Grill, Farmer’s Market, Los Angeles.
The time: December 10, 2008.
The participants: Myself and my once a year lunch guest, Santa Claus

ME: What’d you get?

SANTA: Carnitas.

ME: Yum.

SANTA: What’s that? Nopales salad? Glad to see you’re going vegetarian. You’re not a kid anymore.

ME: I know.

SANTA: Wouldn’t hurt you to drop a few pounds. Thirty, maybe forty…

ME: Workin’ on it.

SANTA: Each year puts you more at risk… high blood pressure, diabetes…

ME: Who are you, the Ghost of Christmas Future?

SANTA: I wouldn’t nag if I didn’t care.

ME: I guess. How was your year? Still dealing with global warming?

SANTA: Yeah. It’s freaking awesome to find polar bears swimming in what once was my front yard.

ME: Just give them Cokes. That works in commercials.

SANTA: You ever deal with a 1500 pound bruin goofed on caffeine? Not fun.

ME: That kid at the next table is checking you out.

SANTA: Hi, Michelle.

ME: How’d you know…oh, right.

SANTA: Whoa, I’m stuffed. Where’s the check?

ME: Already paid.

SANTA: No! I always…

ME: So put me on the naughty list.

SANTA: Forty pounds, next December. I’ll be watching.

ME: Naturally.

Paul Dini is the Emmy and Eisner Award winning writer of Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Detective Comics, Countdown among many, many other things. You can find him online at either kingofbreakfast.livejournal.com or http://www.jinglebelle.com/.